Backing up your stuff

When you sign in with your Microsoft account on your Windows Phone 8.1, you can turn on a service that lets you automatically save important things to the cloud so you'll have a backup if something happens to your phone.

You can choose how your phone backs up your apps, settings, text messages and photos and videos. In the App list, just go to Settings > Backup.

Microsoft doesn't use the information that you back up for advertising or marketing purposes.

Apps + settings

One of the toughest things about replacing a lost phone or upgrading is getting your accounts, apps and settings just the way you like them on your new phone. We can create a backup of all sorts of things to make the transition easier, including:

The apps you've installed on your phone, along with high scores and progress from participating apps.

To delete backups

Tap Apps + settings, tap Manage backups (called Advanced on Windows Phone 8), then do one of the following:

If you want to delete your entire backup, tick the Settings backup checkbox and tap Delete.

If you only want to delete your app data, untick the Settings backup checkbox, tick the App backup checkbox and tap Delete.

Tip

Deleting backups on your phone only removes the local copy, but you can delete backups permanently from OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive). Log in to your OneDrive account and go to Settings > Options > Device settings. You'll see a list of your backups and can delete any you want.

Text messages

You can automatically back up your SMS and MMS messages to the cloud. That way, the next time you get a new Windows Phone, you can restore your conversations when you set up the phone. When you delete your messages from your phone, they'll be deleted from the cloud as well, so you're always in sync.